Which of these is more exciting or entertaining to you? A modern military invasion of a fantasy world, as in your typical elves, dragons, castles, ect or an alien invasion of that world instead? (The humans will be more open to alliances and peaceful interactions than the aliens allowing better character interactions). I can't decide on which. My friend said that a modern military invasion would be less entertaining. Is that correct or just a matter of perspective?
It's definitely a matter of perspective. There's no one 'correct' subject matter. Don't let someone's personal preferences sway you from writing what sounds most interesting to you, what you want to write. Writing to someone else's interests is never going to be that much fun.
Ditto. How you write, not what you write. I'd steer away from any advice that says "Blank is an uninteresting plot line" or "blank is an interesting plot line"--should be about how you present said plot line, not the plot line as a whole. High Fantasy or Alien Scifi--both have been around quite a while and keep selling...so clearly the plot lines aren't uninteresting. But one can argue that certain writers have written them boring.
Option #2 is Starship Troopers. You may find fan fic sites that would give you material to work with and a ready-made audience to beta to. I think possibly what people are responding to here is your ideas are too broad. Neither option is about the character(s) in the story. In Starship Troopers there were key protagonists and the story follows their journey through the universe as they combat the bugs, developing from new recruits into their various areas of expertise. I agree with @izzybot : write what you would enjoy reading / writing.
Yanno what I think would be even better? Write about a fantasy world full of aliens who get invaded by humans, told by the aliens perspective. I'd read that.
Neither are super original. It kind of reminded me of the movie avatar truth be told. :/ I'm not saying it couldn't work if flushed out and executed really well but this just feels like a genre cross over, and I personally have never been a fan of cross overs or books that redundantly stick to their genre.
Either one could be great. It is *why* they invade, *how* they invade, and most of all, *what happens* after they invade. In other words, it is the motivations and the actual events that happen within that very basic framework you proposed, and how all of that affects the main characters, that will make your book great or boring.
either way, you're going to need some hot sex scenes between aliens and humans if you want ME to read your book. *tongue in cheek*
If I understand correctly... Aliens invading a fantasy setting is tempting for the fantasy vs scifi feel but... It'd be hard to pull off in a noncomedic sense. Because you have two very over whelming cultures that we are arguably familiar with but demand originality from. If you just put in clichés its going to feel dull and over bearing I can imagine. However if you're parodying the cliches that'd be another thing that entirely and I can see working rather well. Humans vs fantasy though is much more relatable, and id say easier. Plus aliens themselves are another 'culture' that has to be entirely original and thus more piling to the plot. Just some thoughts I had!
It's all a matter of perspective. The first one is the obvious choice. The second one is unique, but probably harder to do and get it right without others thinking that it's going to be boring.
I like the idea of a modern military vs fantasy universe. But maybe you can combine throw "aliens" into the mix as well. Like, as our two universes somehow overlap the modern humans could easily think they are dealing with extraterrestrials rather than elves and dwarves. Or maybe true aliens with the ability to travel between dimensions are invading modern earth and "middle" at the same time and somehow the universes overlap and the US Army has to form an alliance with the elven army in order to repel the evil alien invaders. Like the Harry Turtledove meets DragonLance!
The only differences between aliens vs mankind is that: Aliens would have a completely different language where as fantasy humans usually speak some form of English. I mean if "modern people" have the power to go into a fantasy setting than they would be as technologically advanced as the aliens I would assume, unless you make the aliens entirely different which is up to you.
Avatar was human military in a fantasy type world and I found the story really engaging. Plus, we the reader would easily relate to the human element - understand reasons for alliances, emotional connections etc. without a lot of backstory explanations. Also, thought Lea Brooks idea was very good.
